Ever wonder how China can endlessly generate goal-seeked GDP of precisely 8.00001% year after year? Or how it can constantly find use for the massive and ever-larger surplus of warehoused commodities? Simple - never stop building. Which, apparently means blowing up empty building before they are even finished and rebuilding them. Rinse. Repeat. After all gotta keep all those construction workers from rioting, and all those USD reserves redirected into Brazilian and OZ commodities, now that China is not really buying US debt anymore. China Hush has some stunning pictures confirming that in its search of the great home bubble perpetual engine, the politbureau comrades may have stumbled onto the bricks and mortar equivalent of Shangri La. In the meantime, more on the whole "controlled demolition thing" from China Hush.

As one of the most architectural productive country, China aggregates 2 billion m2
of new building area every year, consuming about 40% of the world’s
concrete and steel. However, on the flip side of the new building fever,
there lie the rubbles and remains of other “older” buildings: people
tear down four-star hotels to build five-star ones and bulldoze newly
developed construction sites before they are even finished. Lots of
young strong buildings are down, fulfilling their unnatural destiny in
the roaring noise of blasting. (Source from ifeng.com and people.com.cn)

1. Vienna Wood Community in Hefei City died before born on Dec. 10th, 2005. The community covered about 20,000 m2
construction area with the main structure raised to 58.5 m high. The
tens of millions yuan worth building was blasted as a whole when its 16th
floor was still under progress. According to local government, the
community punctuated the central divide of Hefei City, blocking the
scenery between Huangshan Road and Dashushan Mountain. They couldn’t
straighten Huangshan Road unless the community was out of the way.

2. The Bund Community in Wuhan, 4 years old, blasted on March 30th,
2002. “I give you the Yangtze River” the slogan of the community
captured many people’s hearts, so did its view over the magnificent
Yangtze River and Wuhan’s historic spot Yellow Crane Tower. It took only
4 years to build the community that was documented and verified by
relative departments. Then it also took only 4 years for the once
legitimate community to be identified as illegitimate buildings that
violate the country’s flood protection regulations. Force demolition
soon took place, resulting in over 200 million yuan direct economic
losses, not to mention the costs that were times of its original
investment government had to cover for the demolition and restoration of
bund environment.

3. Yuxi Exhibition Center, 5 years old, down on Aug. 20th,
2005. The landmark building in Yongchuan City, Chongqing Municipality
cost 40 million yuan to build, and 250 kg dynamite and about 5000
detonators to blow up. Besides holding exhibition, the center was also
used as administrative reception center due to its convenient location
and sound facility. However, the mine boss who bought the center for 30
million yuan decided it was an even better idea for the center to become
the city’s first five-star hotel instead of holding some stupid
exhibitions. Thus down with the landmark exhibition center and here was
250 million yuan to build the glorious five star hotel. To welcome the
city’s first five-star hotel, vice mayor of Yongchuang City came down to
the site in person and helped monitor the blasting process.

4. Zhongyin Building in Wenzhou City, 6 years old, life ended on May 18th,
2004. Situated at the city’s golden area since 1997, the 93 m high
building was never put into use as it was identified as unsafe building
and soon brought out the city’s biggest financial crime ever, involving
43 suspects and over 30 million yuan corruption. And for that reason, it
was also remembered as corruption building. Solving all of the
building’s safety problems would demand more than the cost of building a
new one, the authority then blow it up.

5. Shouyi Sports Center, 10 years old, blasted on June 16th,
2009. It was called “champion’s cradle” for fostering a good many sport
talents for Hubei Province, including badminton world champions Gao
Ling and Wei Yili. But when its existence bothered the 20 billion worth
museum project for the 100th anniversary of Revolution of
1911, it had to give way, even though it was only 10 years old and still
upgrading its sport equipments up till the demolition.

6. Five Lake Hotel in Nancang City, 13 years old, blasted on Feb. 6th,
2010. The four star hotel building was finished in 1997 and viewed as
one of the landmark building in Nancang City too. The hotel was taken
over by a Hong Kong company who decided to turn it into a five-star
hotel. It was estimated that the demolition would result in 40,000 ton
of construction waste, taking up a large area of refuse landfill.

7. Shenyang Summer Palace, 15 years old, blasted on Feb. 20th,
2009. Completed in 1994, the palace is a water entertaining center that
cost 200 million yuan to build. It was the biggest arched architecture
in Asia then. For a long time, Shenyang Summer Palace was viewed as the
greatest fun in the city, receiving over 400 million tourists in its
first 5 years. However, the city’s greatest fun was blown up within 2
seconds for the sake of real estate development.

8. Zhejiang University’s No. 3 building in lakeside campus, 16 years old, downed on Jan. 6th,
2007. Standing 67 m high with 20 floors, the No.3 building was the
highest on West Lake side. But the university transferred part of the
campus land into commercial property for 2.46 billion yuan, thus torn
down the building to hand over a flat land. On the day of the blasting,
teachers and students flocked together to witness the spectacular and
tragic moment.

9. Tsingtao Railway Building, 16 years old, blasted on Jan. 17th,
2007. The building was designed in accordance with three star standard
and meant to be there for about 100 years. Opened in 1991, it was seen
as one of the landmark buildings of the city at that time. Still it had
to give way when it countered the construction program for the 2008
Olympic.

10. Shenyang Wulihe Stadium, 18 years old, blasted on Feb 12th,
2007. Known as China’s blessed football land, the stadium costs 250
million yuan to build. It witnessed the one time China football team
became World Cup qualifier on Oct. 7th 2001. Two years later,
Shenyang City successfully applied for football competition venue of
the 2008 Olympic. The government switched its alteration and addition
plan to tearing down the 18-year-old stadium instead. The land was then
auctioned at 1.6 billion yuan and gulped up 1.9 billion yuan investment
to build a new Olympic Center.

11. “Asian First Arc” in Shanghai, 11 years old, demolished on Feb. 13th,
2008. The beautiful arc was seen as the best viewing spot in Shanghai
bund. The bridge was designed to service for at least 100 years, but the
bund passage remodeling program decided it should die at 1/10 of its
life span. “We architect designers, should look further in future
planning.” Said Zhao Lizhong, designer of the arc.

What really is your point? Or do you even have one? So China "copies" and "makes" lots of consumer goods. Most, if not all, are not of original design, yet the world wants and needs these goods. Are you saying they don't play an important economic role in the global arena? They provide cheap labor. Are you upset that they have a a competitive edge when it comes to cost of production? You hate China because of...? Or you just hate China, period. It's entirely your right to hate them, for whatever reason, but if your position is that they are irrelevant somehow, then you're incredily stupid.

"Are you saying they don't play an important economic role in the global arena? They provide cheap labor."

Are you retarded? Read the post. Of course an economy that produces mass quantities is important. Chimps can copy stuff too. Are they as smart as a human? My point is that when the West stops exporting it's ideas, we'll be competitive too. Henry Ford paid his workers a higher wage because he wanted them to be able to buy his products.

Really, chimps can build cars? I didn't know that. Now you're comparing the Chinese to chimps. You obviously have an issue with China and see their competitive edge as a personal attack on your well-being. The truth is, capital will flow to where it is most productive. You need to get a grip and stop taking things so personally. It's obvious since I am the second poster you have attacked regarding this topic.

And the last time I checked, the West did pay its auto-workers more than the Japanese paid theirs, and the west was still not very competitive.

Gotta remember that 40 years ago China was a country of peasant rice farmers. Today it is the 2nd largest global economy still populated by peasant rice farmers. Don't know who they imitated to achieve that result but maybe the west should learn to copy and perfect the Chinese model. Perhaps replace bottomless debt with bountiful rice paddy (an Irish carbohydrate dish pefected by Han).

Past 1000 years? Ok, we'll start with gunpowder and the compass. Move on a bit beyond that and they were the first to practice archaeology.

Too old for you? in 1972, they discovered the anti-malarial properties of artemisisnin (artemisinin).

That's the "A"s for the last 1000 years. Now for the "B"s:

The bomb, the bristle toothbrush, and the bulkhead partition.

The C's: Co-fusion steel process was perfected, the use of coke for fuel, and the chain drive.

In the D's, they have only dominoes for the last 1000 years.

They make up for this in the E's, where they founded the study of endocrinology, created the escapement (useful for clockworks), and exploding bombs.

Everyone knows about fireworks, but they might not know that they also invented aerial flares. They should also be noted for the invention of forensic science.

They created the gas cylinder. They were the first to develop hybrid rice (in the 1970's).

They were the first to inoculate for SMALLPOX, at least 400 years prior to its discovery in the West, and it may have been in sporadic use for several hundred years before that.

They invented Jacob's staff, a surveying tool. Their junks, while in existence for hundreds of years prior, were still traveling the open ocean as far as Africa, and some say America (though evidence of this is sketchy at best).

Aerial signaling using kites was perfected during this time.

In 2006, the Chinese invented maglev wind power generators. They also invented modular architecture.

They invented the naval mine.

They invented the pound lock (as in canal lock, allowing ships to be raised and lowered between waterways and canals). Also, porcelain.

The raised relief map, the restaurant menu, rocket bombs.

Suspension bridges.

Toilet paper (actually came BEFORE fiat currency, but didn't see widespread use until around 1200).

well i would go dig clay out of the ground locally. i thought porcelain was found in great britian along the cliffs of dover. cause dover clay. i have become some what forgetful lately. it has been a few years since i used porcelain. it is very very hard to throw porcelain clay because it doesn't have much grog. can't throw large pieces. i used a white stoneware that fired similarly to porcelain. porcelain cracks easy, too. thanks for your technical reasoning.

they are transferring "wealth" from toilet paper into hard assets....taking advantage of the US to protect their future..they've been doing it for quite a while....while we here in the US indebt ourselves into oblivion...in my opinion theres not much else that is more intelligent....duh.

I might be a chimp, but at least I didn't dig myself into a hole and attempt to argue my way out of it. Any other stupid blanket statements for today? Next time you open your mouth, you should do a little research. Moron.

Well, SOMEBODY is. Walking around town yesterday, saw a building that isn't even 10yrs old, being torn down and a new CRE building going in! Remember when it was built, had a Subway and a Supercuts and something else, don't remember what now. Even though, a guesstimate, 30% of CRE around it is for sale or lease, mostly newer buildings. I even commented out loud, who would finance a new CRE in this climate? Very strange.

Nobody's ever been able to tell me what they copied when they designed that.

It's a lesson that the West never seems to learn. We started off by sneering at these funny little men with their funny little motorcycles. As late as 1966, BSA (in England) was making more bikes than any other company in the world. By 1973, BSA-Triumph was bankrupt. And the sneering had lessened somewhat.

Same with cameras and optical equipment. Same with cars, TVs, radios, photocopiers, and so on and so on.

But of course, unlike in the 1960s, Japan is now a comparatively high-cost country. China has taken Japan's place. I bet that within 10 years, China will be offering BMW-quality vehicles at decidedly unBMW prices. And, once again, some will sneer at these funny little men with their funny little vehicles.

It will last a couple of generations, and then some other low-cost country will start to displace China. I wonder which one it will be . . .

No-one will displace China until they fully reverse coarse on their drive from socialism to capitalism. They have the breaks on the floor right now, though in some places, the gas is also to the floor. We'll see.

The most useful predictor of a nation's long term global power is this: population/(Government spending as a fraction of GDP). There is likely an exponential term in there somewhere, but this is the simple version. The US lead the world in 1900, with a score about what China's is today (but with a MUCH smaller population). Lack of government spending implies freedom for the citizens, who will use that freedom to advance their own lot in life, creating a huge amount of capital. If the government leaves it alone, that capital will grow exponentially forever, until you get a bunch of immortal energy beings floating around a dying universe. Life is quite good in the meantime for the average person. Even the poorest of the poor will have access to at least some minimal capital, as it will be so cheap it can be given away for free. Governments try to force that process to happen early (when they have their citizens best interests in mind), or they try to take that capital and more for themselves and their friends (when they don't). Either way, you wind up with slowed, then stopped, then reversed progress.

We should learn something from this. It seems we like to go elsewhere to blow shit up and then pay to rebuild it using the locals that are still alive to do the rebuilding. Why don't we carpet bomb Detroit, Cleveland, Newark, etc.... Then put out of work construction workers back to work rebuilding some cities right here in the USA!

Take a look at Hiroshima after we dropped the bomb on it and what it looks like today. Talk about urban renewal. Let's keep those destructive dollars working right here, right now. Time for the government to blow some shit up here.

Dead right, FEDbuster. I've been saying the same thing for years, ever since seeing economics commentators on TV telling me that Hurricane Katrina would be good for the local economy, because of all the reconstruction work that would be needed.

So, let's give the Air Force some useful target practise. We obliterate one major US city every week. Why not nuke the San Andreas fault while we're at it? Pretty soon we'll all be rich!